


Noah's Lament

by Merchant



Series: Raven Revisited [10]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Gen, It's a Noah writing so what do you expect?, Mentions of Death, Precious baby Noah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-20
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-04-10 05:58:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4379903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merchant/pseuds/Merchant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's very unpleasant, when you're dead but haven't passed on. What do ghosts even think about anyways? What <i>would</i> they think about?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Noah's Lament

**Author's Note:**

> I have had this writing in my head since the first time I read Blue Lily, Lily Blue. _Immediately_ after I read the chapter about Gansey telling Noah he was going to ask for Noah's life back, the ideas for this writing came flooding into my mind. I knew exactly what I wanted to write about, and here it is. As I said in notes from other writings, I'm not used to writing about other characters. Hope you enjoy reading, regardless!
> 
>  
> 
> **The Raven Cycle, and it's characters, are the sole property of Maggie Stiefvater. I am the sole owner of this writing.**

It was a very unpleasant thing, when your body would start decaying once death had taken you. It was another thing altogether, when your body _continued_ to decay after death had already claimed your soul, and left your body nothing but bare bones, a reminder that there had been a person that had lived in this world, and had passed on. For Noah, who was unable to pass on, death hadn’t really bothered him before, but it bothered him now.

Noah didn’t remember the circumstances of his death completely; he just recalled a faint memory of the act as it happened seven years ago. One moment he had been standing there, bewitched by a forest that contained trees that _spoke_ to you, repeating the word _sacrifice_ over and over. The next moment, he had turned to get Whelk’s reaction, and that’s when he felt the skateboard against his skull. It was quick, Noah had heard a _crack_ as his face was bashed in, and then he was on the ground. Blood leaked out of the eye that had been crushed, as he lie there, slowly dying. He could barely see Whelk’s face anymore, or _anything_ really, and he thought he heard Whelk say something like “Why didn’t it work?!”, and then there was nothing.

The only reason Noah thought about how he had died, was because Blue had told him that he had been re-enacting his death several times when he would come over to 300 Fox Way. He didn’t remember what it was like to be alive anymore, because seven years stuck without passing on did a number on your memories. Did ghosts even remember things like that? How they had died? Noah didn’t want to remember, he didn’t want to keep _dying_ , when he had already died once.

He recalled the day that Gansey found him in front of the Aglionby dorms. Noah had been wandering around, and then sitting on one of the benches. He didn’t think anyone would see him, since not many had the ability to see ghosts. He would fade away after a while, returning to the site of his death. Then Gansey had addressed him, asked him which dorm he lived in, but Noah didn’t tell him that he hadn’t been a student for seven years, and was just eternally dressed as one. Gansey had invited him to stay at Monmouth, figuring Noah was a new freshman. Monmouth became his new haunt, so to speak, and he’d always end up back there when he hadn’t vanished to his death site.

Even when Noah _did_ bring up the fact that he was indeed not alive, everyone thought he was just making exaggerations. Gansey would chuckle, Ronan would smirk, and Adam would just shake his head. They all figured he was younger than they were, but he had looked this way for seven years. When they finally _did_ find out, when Noah had shown them where he had died, where his bones were left, Noah was sure they’d be scared of him, terrified at seeing an _actual_ ghost standing before them. Things didn’t change, and Noah continued to hang around with the others, and act like he was a living being still. He could touch people and objects, he could be touched, and it was like he wasn’t dead at all, if you ignored the smudge that forever told of how he had died.

He had wandered around for seven long years, watched people grow older, watched people he knew graduate from Aglionby, and move on. He had been utterly alone, and figured he would stay alone, as ghosts tend to be. Then he had befriended Gansey, Ronan, Adam, and Blue, and they made him feel so _alive_ , that he never wanted to move on. But now, he was losing control over himself, he could _feel_ himself being possessed by _something_ , being dragged away to the ley line constantly. It made him so scared, so he would hide away and cry, because he was afraid he’d become an angry spirit, to the point that he would be exorcised, and have to finally move on to the next life. It saddened him, every time Blue would cut off the energy he used to make his presence known, because then he would be forced to disappear again. He wouldn’t be seen anymore, so he couldn’t talk to anyone.

Then Gansey had told him about the favor he would ask of Glendower. “When we find Glendower, I’m asking him to fix you. As the favor.” Noah could hardly believe it, that Gansey would be so selfless, so gracious as to do something like that. “It’s….it’s nice of you,” he had said, because that was the only thing he could think of to say at that time. He had _a lot_ he could’ve said, but Gansey voiced the main thing he wanted to say. “I don’t know the first thing about how to be that person again.” It was true, Noah also didn’t know if he could, or would be able to, go back to being that kind of person, the person he _was_ before he had died.

There was a lot to consider about that concept as well. What exactly _would_ happen if Noah was brought back to life? If he was alive again, did that mean _Gansey_ would die in his place? Would Noah even _remember_ Gansey, Ronan, Adam, and Blue? Would _they_ remember _him?_ There was a possibility that he wouldn’t know them, wouldn’t remember spending all of that time with them, and they wouldn’t either.

Another thing Noah mused about, was _how_ would he be brought back? Noah thought about how he could return to life as he currently was when he had died, a 17-year old Aglionby boy close to graduating. The other possibility would be that that time would move forward for Noah, instead of going around in a circle.  That would mean he would return as he would’ve been if had still lived, which would make him a 24-year old man.

In either case, Noah knew he probably wouldn’t be able to go back to Aglionby, at least, not as himself. If he returned as a 17-year old, he’d have to use a fake identity, seeing as it’d be quite odd to see the name Noah Czerny used, when Noah Czerny had died seven years prior. That would only work if no one paid attention to the newspaper, which had run a story about his bones being found, and included a picture of him as he currently looked. If he returned as his actual age of 24, going back to Aglionby was completely out of the question. He would still have to use a fake identity, and would be forced to get his GED, and enroll in college elsewhere, while Gansey, Ronan, Adam, and Blue graduated.

That was another thing to think about, concerning Noah’s best friends. If he remembered them, and they remembered him as well, would they still hang out with him, especially if he was a 24-year old man? Noah had spent so much time being the same age as the rest of them, that it’d be awkward to be the _oldest_ out of the group.

Noah thought about his family, remembering how they looked, and seeing them at his funeral. If Noah came back to life, no matter what he looked like, or how old he was, he wouldn’t be able to see his family ever again. It wouldn’t go over well if Mr. and Mrs. Czerny, as well as Noah’s sisters, saw that their son had miraculouslycome back to life. Noah wouldn’t ever be able to return to that house.

All of these things made Noah troubled, made him wonder if he really _did_ want to come back to life. He couldn’t find a way to word that, so he just gave Gansey a simple answer. “That’s exactly how I feel about the idea of being alive again.”


End file.
